kanisatha

Yeah, I do find the paladin class attractive for the NPC interaction benefits. The story and roleplaying elements of this game are what I love, whereas I approach the combat elements with much dread. I've already played the game quite a bit in its 1.0 incarnation and Eder is easily my favorite NPC so he must be in my party. So may be I should cross out fighter for my PC. I'm so glad I posted here because now I'm really psyched about experimenting with a monk. I would never have even considered it prior to this exchange.

Thanks for all the great tips. You all are awesome! I've taken notes on everything you all recommended so that I can try out different combinations and see what I like best. @Boeroer, I noted your comments about the monk class. All of my D&D experiences with monks really turned me off to that class, but obviously this is not D&D so may be I will give monk a chance as well. A big part of why I didn't like monks in D&D was that you get all that awesome weapons and armor treasure but cannot use any of it with a monk. But am I right in assuming in PoE monks can use all weapons and armor?

Wow, this is a great thread! Here's my situation. I'm a very casual gamer with only a little bit of time in any week to devote to my games. As such I don't like having to spend a lot of time and effort doing a lot of buffing etc. I love playing a melee character that can just dive right in and deliver a lot of damage while also being able to withstand some damage. And I don't care for playing monk or rogue. So, what would be best for me? Fighter, barbarian, paladin, ranger? Also, two-hander versus two-weapon? Build recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

This might be an unpopular view, but I've always wondered why dragons (in PoE and other similar games) have to always be enemies. Why can't we have dragons as allies? Or at least dragons that are friendly and with whom you can converse, engage in witty banter, exchange information, may be even get quests? Just my $0.02.

HA! "Chronic restarter" - I love this term. I'm one too! Not to derail the thread or anything, but any thoughts on why you are a chronic restarter? I know why I do it and am truly curious why others do it.

This. It is especially sad for me because I think Eder is arguably the most interesting of the NPCs. Also, for someone like me who dislikes casters and prefers melee classes, and where this game was already heavily favoring caster classes, sucks to have even the tanking role better served by a caster class (or a paladin).

My thanks to everyone offering helpful comments. 'Tis much appreciated. So refreshing comapred with the crap that sometimes gets thrown at people on these forums. I have indeed tried the lowest difficulty setting and using pause a lot. I still end up with some of my companions dead. I suppose one approach to take would be to simply accept that outcome as a part of how the game is supposed to play out. But since roleplaying is the most important and enjoyable thing for me in these games by far, and I roleplay my PC as though it's me in RL, I tend to get very attached to my companions. And yes, even the annoying ones! But ultimately I am a huge supporter of having as many people as possible being happy, so perhaps one could have a huge battle/siege outcome that results from one path of player choices, but also have a second possible path can be taken to avoid the siege? Actually thinking about it, a siege may not be so bad because a true siege unfolds somewhat slowly. What I really hate is that huge, massive assault simultaneously from everywhere.

Strange you feel NWN2 was "awesome", but couldn't bring yourself to get through a 10 - 15 minute battle in order to complete the rest of the game. Did you find it too difficult to beat? And as has previously been pointed out, it was really just another battle that happened to occur in waves. I would think even someone who didn't enjoy that battle could persist through it for a few minutes in order to get to the next part of the game. But I guess we've got all types on this crazy spinning ball we call Earth. And of course, if that's how you feel, that's how you feel. As someone who didn't grow up playng computer games (and who has never played console games), it s extremely hard for me to manipulate mouse and keyboard controls efficiently to handle a large number of actions very fast. So the only way that battle works out for me is with most if not all of my companions ending up dead, at which point the game itself becomes meaningless to me given my strong feelings about keeping my companions alive.

I agree the stronghold could be so much more, but I disagree with the OP about including a mega-battle. I hate mega-battles/sieges, and play fantasy RPGs precisely to avoid that kind of stuff. The stronghold in NwN2 was awesome ... right up until that huge enemy assault on it just before the end of the game. I have never been able to bring myself to play through that stupid battle, and thus never been able to finish that game. It still angers me that an alternative path to the end-game was not provided.

They're going with a Baldur's Gate formula from what I understood: hard cap with different level caps unlocked by eventual expansions or sequels. I personally don't mind, I prefer low level D&D anyway and a huge amount of levels could either make the "numbers" grow out of control or simply devalue levelling itself. I agree with this. I would much prefer less levels in the game as you get more power gain from each level. In the IE and NWN games you would level, and be ready to get into combat to try that new spell you got from getting level 3 spells unlocked, or to try that new feat out, or to see if you can go back and finally unlock that chest. In most modern games with leveling systems that are higher, like Skyrim, you level up and you are barely any more powerful than before (woopity doo!!! I do 3% more damage with power attacks!) so it feels like the same thing it did 5 minutes ago. Although, Skyrim's Feat system made this a little better than some IMHO, but only when the Feat in question made a significant change like the 2 handed casting feats or the feat where healing restored stamina. Certain feats made you feel powerful others though... yawn. I want leveling to matter. It is a very gratifying experience to feel more powerful immediately after leveling, and many games throw this out of the window for a higher number for the sake of a higher number. I am glad Obsidian is going for a lower number here. It will also mean we won't have to reboot our character every sequel (crosses fingers) to the game like the ME series. That was something that truly irritated me from the very beginning of ME2. Although, at least ME2 tried to explain it through the story. ME3 just did it and didn't care if it made sense. This. Leveling should be for players to make some conscious choices about the direction of their characters and not merely for automatic increases of points in some aspects of characters (hit points, attributes, saves, etc.). Fewer but meaningful level-ups is better than many empty level-ups (like in the later stages of the DA games).

The Boston (Massachusetts) area, though I consider Texas to be "home." Originally from Asia, but that was a very long time ago.

CC for SFX and sound based actions would be great if it can be practical and not unreasonably costly; the 'floating text' idea is a good one too. But I was especially thinking of situations like when you go into a location and there's a boss bad guy who wants to say some things to you before he smacks you, but because there's no dialog involved it doesn't show up as text. In my particular case, I'm not deaf and can hear most sounds. But I have significant hearing loss in one ear and a little loss in the other ear, and this unbalance causes speech to be highly distorted for me.

Don't know if this has come up before, but I have a plea for the devs. Please have a really good and robust close-captioning system for speech that can be toggled on. I am sure I am not the only hearing impaired person who loved the IE games and is so looking forward to this game. CC cannot be expected to completely make up for not being able to hear all the sounds in the game, but it still goes a very long way towards making games enjoyable for people like me. Thanks!

Hi, This is my very first post ever, not just to this forum but to any forum (though I've been carefully reading all of your posts here right from the beginning). But as a passionate fan of the IE games and as a backer of PoE, I just had to finally make my first post in response to update #72 because of my deep disappointment that we won't be getting more wilderness exploration areas. For me, dungeon exploration is a painful chore, cities are ok/fine, wilderness areas are awesome. That is why for me it is BG1 (not BG2) that is the greatest crpg of all time. And this is supposed to be a spiritual successor to all the IE games and not just to BG2. Having lots of wilderness exploration in the game should not even be thought of as an "added stretch goal." It should be part of the original game concept - a given, not a special addon. Anyway, what I hope for now is that exploration of areas will not be linear so that I can save what wilderness areas there are available for exploation to the end of the game. I would hate to have to finish all the wilderness areas early in the game and then only have cities, and especially dungeons left for the rest of the game. That would really kill my excitement.